Well, 4 days of pig breeding can be checked off my bucket list. Not that it was on it, to begin with.
Primrose came into standing heat the other day, or as they call it in Britton, brimming. As in "that little girl, there is just a brimming, ant she."
(How's my British accent?)
We bred Primrose two days in a row.
The first time went OK.
The image I had built up in my head; Primrose running wild around the pen. Me chasing her, with pipettes, rubber gloves and little bottles flying everywhere, never came to fruition.
Without going into too much detail for your sake, here's how it works.
The pig semen comes in little squishy bottles.
The bottles attach to the end of the pipettes (something like a catheter) place the pipettes in counter-clockwise gently squish the bottle and be patient.
The pig pretty much doses the work from there.
I watched countless DIY videos about how to do this as I was hiding in the corner of my local library hoping no one saw the laptop screen, how would one explain this, well I'm addicted to pig p**n..? Uh no!
Anyways in the videos, they kept saying, "sit on her back facing her tail."
What?
OK, I understand that sitting on her simulates the weight of the boar and keeps her receptive to breeding, but really?
I tried sitting on her and two things happened.
One, my feet couldn't reach the ground.
Two, I couldn't see or reach anything else.
So, this is when we employ the big strong husband.
He was there to help me anyway, so he leaned on her and handed me whatever I needed.
Primrose did pretty well all things considered.
She did take a poo right in the middle of everything.
That's pretty normal, happens with cows all the time.
Oh did I forget to mention that this all happened during a snowstorm!
Yup, that's when Prim was ready, that's when the farmer does it!
There are no breaks given from mother nature.
Hopefully, she is kind enough to help with making little piglets.
Yum yum was in standing heat right after Prim, so my heat detection and timing was on the mark.
That's one of the hardest parts is detecting and predicting the heats.
Yum yum wasn't as easy to breed as Prim was, she danced a bit and wasn't as patient.
She is also quite aggressive when in heat. I would not enter the pen with her, she was doing the crazy stalker pig, that one of the videos warned about.
She would follow me grunting. I would stop walking and look back at her and she would halt and bark at me with her sloppy mouth open wide. I would turn away and move forward and she would stalk me again. That is not a trust worthy pig.
She must have had PMS.
Pig menstrual syndrome.
All in all, I would rather IA a pig than a cow.
A pig needs a pipette and a bottle.
A cow needs a semen warmer, a long tube. A glove that goes to your shoulder, a headlock and some luck.
Ahh, that glamor of farming!
Pray for little piglets, everyone!
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